Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday March 27, 2013 @11:21PM
from the what-would-darwin-do? dept.

HungWeiLo writes "A California man who believes the literal interpretation of the Bible is real is offering $10,000 to anyone who can successfully debunk claims made in the book of Genesis in front of a judge. Joseph Mastropaolo, the man behind this challenge, is to put $10,000 of his own money into an escrow account. His debate opponent would be asked to do the same. They would then jointly agree on a judge based on a list of possible candidates. Mastropaolo said that any evidence presented in the trial must be 'scientific, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated.' For his part, Mastropaolo has a Ph.D. in kinesiology and writes for the Creation Hall of Fame website, which is helping to organize the minitrial. It's also not the first such trial he's tried to arrange. A previous effort, known as the 'Life Science Prize,' proposed a similar scenario. Mastropaolo includes a list of possible circuit court judges to oversee the trial and a list of those he challenged to take part on the evolutionary side of the debate."

If that were the only discrepancy then that could easily be tied in a detail of the creation of man. how about the complete order of how things were invented in the two creation myths? one man was created on the last working day, while the other man was created first and he was seen to be bored so all the things were created in the world for him.

True, but that's the most glaring one. Also, if you can't make it to chapter two without a discrepancy, what hope is there for the rest of it?

Biblical scholars (as opposed to the nutjob putting up this award) theorize that the books of Moses are assembled from at least three traditions. This becomes more clear when looking at the original Hebrew - the words used for "God" change where in English they are translated into the same word. As a Catholic, disproving the Bible means little to me since it is only a part of my faith, not the whole foundation of it. Protestants however must frantically fight to prove the book entirely correct because of their subscription to the sola scriptura heresy which separates them from Catholicism.

To me, Genesis is a collection of myths with a spiritual truth to be discerned from them. They are instructive stories, not a literal chronicle of events.

To make that claim is to profess that you do not understand what sola scriptura is. I was born in a Baptist family, a family which believes every word in the Bible is literally true and cannot begin to fathom the very possibility that any of it was false. When I did, my faith flew apart until I converted to Catholicism some years ago.

I was born in a Baptist family, a family which believes every word in the Bible is literally true and cannot begin to fathom the very possibility that any of it was false.

And of course your family is 100% representative of not just Baptists in general, but the entire spectrum of Protestantism, from Anglicans (basically Catholics minus the Pope and the homophobia) to Calvinists to Quakers to Pentecostalists to...well, pick up a phone book and look under "Churches".

Believing in reality is not necessary for reality at all. One of the most important aspects of reality is, that it is real. No faith needed. A wall is just there, and even if you stop believing in the wall, you will still hit your head if you try to run through it.

You're assuming that he's basing it on the "current political situation" and not the substance of relative defining texts. Islam is demonstrably more evil because the Quran contains imperatives for violence like "take them and kill them [infidels] wherever ye find them" in surah 4:89 among many. The New Testament (which supersedes the Old thus avoiding all the violent prescriptions therein according to many Christians, despite that the New Testament itself is contradictory on whether it does or doesn't supersede) at its most violent stops short of commanding believers to kill. There are times such as in Romans 1:32 where sinners are called out as 'worthy of death' but it doesn't command believers to kill them. (Though things like that were nonetheless used to justify killings, such as the mob murder of Hypatia.)

I'm running out of time and have to go to work so I will toss out a couple other things in passing: in addition to being demonstrably more evil in imperative prescriptions of violence, the Quran is more evil in its explicit misogyny. I don't have time to dig up the exact surah, but I recall one that gives men an explicit pass on beating their wives. The New Testament treats women as second class citizens, mostly telling them to sit down and shut up, but it never goes as far as saying you can and should beat them up.

Lastly, the Quran is demonstrably more evil in that it has encouraged a culture of child rape since many Muslims still see Muhammad's having a nine year-old wife as not just acceptable, but an example of holiness since everything he ever did is supposed to be holy. So yeah, tell it to all the raped little girls that Islam isn't more evil.

Good and evil are concepts from the philosophy of ethics. Religions have a history that is deeply intertwined with that of ethics, as they typically attempt to prescribe an ethical code for their adherents, but ethics as a field does exist independently from religion.

I would have been surprised that you got +5 insightful, but then historical accuracy has never really been a strong point of slashdot.

First, there is a massive difference between disapproving of a sexual practice, and discrimination. Its not "discrimination" to say "I think adultery / promiscuity is wrong"; why does it become discrimination to say "I think homosexual intercourse is wrong"? Is this the age of equivocation or something?

Womens rights....you somehow act as if all throughout society women had all these wonderful rights and then christians came in and took them away. Meanwhile, back in reality, Christianity specifically marks out women and children as having some worth, in an age ( 1st / 2nd centuries AD) when they were seen as worthless and property of their husbands. In fact, throughout the Old and New testaments, it REPEATEDLY has women shown as having value-- in fact, the same value before God as men.

Regarding slavery, perhaps you should some more research on historical christian vs non-christian views and attitudes towards slaves and slavery-- ie, during OT times (Egypt, babylon vs hebrew), or NT times (christian vs roman), or during the abolition movement.Regarding the latter, I might start you off here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery#Christian_abolitionism [wikipedia.org]

Although many abolitionists opposed slavery on purely philosophical reasons, anti-slavery movements attracted strong religious elements. Throughout Europe and the United States, Christians, usually from 'un-institutional' Christian faith movements, not directly connected with traditional state churches, or "non-conformist" believers within established churches, were to be found at the forefront of the abolitionist movements

I also like how you defined "on the losing side of an issue" as "doesnt agree with me". Protip-- socially conservative doesnt mean "doesnt contribute to charity" or "doesnt volunteer"; but Im sure all those friends I know serving at homeless shelters, assisting families of incarcerated men, providing free ESOL, etc are all heartless, greedy corporatists, right?

You want to talk about bigotry, honestly Ive seen more of it on slashdot towards christians than anything else. Your closing sentence kind of sums that up pretty well.

Fuck Christianity. The only thing it has going for it is that it's not quite as evil as Islam.

So that whole thing about "do unto others as you would have them do to you" is, according to you, complete bullshit and not worth considering?

Your point is so much irrelevant that I don't even know why I spend time answering it. Do you mean to say that "do unto others as you would have them do to you" is patented by Christians and nobody else should ever use it?

Religions are a mix between a set of faith and a set of values. When we say it's complete bullshit we mean it as a whole, not that every idea ever produced by a Christian is bullshit.

Grow up. Realize these are just fairy tales. You're probably big enough to decide for yourself what's good and bad. No need for a 2000 years old book for that.

You're probably big enough to decide for yourself what's good and bad.

Sure, but I don't have the hubris to think that my uninformed whims and impulses are the best possible moral decisions anyone could make. So it's useful to have a handbook, even a set of fairy tales as you put it, to put things in perspective.

I'm not asking you to come to Jesus or anything. I'm just asking you to dial back the contempt a little, and recognize that like it or not, that 2000 year old book of fairy tales has had a profound and enduring influence on Western civilization. And even to entertain the possibility that its influence was not all bad.

I'm just asking you to dial back the contempt a little, and recognize that like it or not, that 2000 year old book of fairy tales has had a profound and enduring influence on Western civilization. And even to entertain the possibility that its influence was not all bad.

Well, that's where we disagree. I agree that the influence of the book wasn't all bad, but I claim the influence of the book did much more bad than good. The so-called "influence on Western civilization" is little more than holding it back.

We may disagree less than you think. I think the bad influence comes not from the book, but from the people who thump it instead of reading it, and use that to justify whatever their baser instincts tell them. I'm not sure whether they outnumber the people who do their best to live by it, but their influence is probably more visible.:-(

Well, I live in the UK and in the last year we've had http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20415689 [slashdot.org]>this and this [guardian.co.uk] as the two biggest church news stories of the year. Whilst the majority think that the church *should* move with the times, and should allow women bishops, and should allow gay people into the church. The church (of england) as an organisation, still [b]actively discriminates[/b] against women and gay people. They have finally allowed gay clergy, it comes with the caveat that they must remain celibate (which is not equality in any sense of the word). When I see women bishops in the Church of England, a female pope in the vatican, and gay people openly welcomed into the church, will be the day that I stop pointing out the bigotry that exists within Christianity.

The issue isnt one of worth. Christianity does not teach that women or homosexuals have less worth, value, or whatever other metric than anyone else.

It does however think that women have a different role than men, and that homosexual activity is sinful. Such a public sin-- particularly if unrepentant, and willful-- would immediately disqualify one for a leadership role in the church.

You're free to disagree, but this is an issue of people saying "I dont care what the bible has to say about my behavior, and I want to be an elder anyways". Well, unfortunately that places you out of the running.

I have to wonder how anybody could possibly believe it's full of contradictions and absurdity. The contradictions start when one half of the book is about vengeful, spiteful, cruel god who'll kill the shit out of you in imaginatively sadistic ways, and the other half features a non-interventionist, loving god whose gay son does crowd pleasing magic tricks.

It's easy to disprove the invisible pink unicorn in your garage: the unicorn cannot be both pink and invisible at the same time; it has to be visible to have a colour. However, this does not disprove that there is a visible pink unicorn in your garage nor does it disprove that you have a colourless and invisible unicorn in your garage.

We can disprove the visible pink unicorn quite easily just by looking for it and not finding it.

Yes. However, the other guy does bring up a good point. There are such things as biblical scholars and they generally don't take the bible literally. This includes both Jews and Xians. Pretty much anyone with half a brain has gotten past the whole "word for word" idea a long time ago.

Given the nature of the work, it's kind of necessary really. You either adjust or sound like some toddler from the bronze age.

The term was adopted by vitriolic anti-Christians as literally "Christianity without Christ" and is extremely offensive to anybody that knows that. If you're actually looking to have intelligent discourse,

This isn't true.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas [wikipedia.org] (which applies it to more words than just Christmas). The "X" derives from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter in Christ, and it's been used that way for hundreds of years.

The term was adopted by vitriolic anti-Christians as literally "Christianity without Christ" and is extremely offensive to anybody that knows that.

I suppose it would be extremely offensive to anybody that ~thinks~ that. But those people are idiots.

X doesn't mean "without Christ". Its literally an abbreviation FOR Christ, in that X is the first letter of Christ in Greek. It was used in Christian art hundreds of years ago. Ancient bible manuscripts going back 1000 years even use the abbreviation Xc for Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

It's only a discrepancy if one fails to recognise that we are dealing with two separate myths. The fact that they are 2 separate stories will be obvious to any naive (in the sense that they have not since childhood been exposed to harmonising accounts) and objective reader. Even the deities are obviously different, and not merely by name.

The second account is clearly the easier target from a scientific PoV. The most glaring internal (to that myth) problem comes in the 2nd 'verse' of this account, Gen 2:5, where we are told that plant life did not exist for two reasons. 1. YHVH-Elohim (a[n editorial?] joining of names that is soon abandoned) had not yet caused it to rain AND there was no man to tend the ground. So what we need to do to "disprove" this account is to show plant life growing independently of human cultivation. Not a big ask. More interesting is the question of what kind of culture could have given rise to a myth that makes such a presumption, which might seem absurd to forest based peoples for instance (HINT: Mesopotamian irrigation cultures).

But to treat the 2nd account as Science, as a literal account of physical origins, is of course knuckle-headed. Worse still, it is simply to miss the beauty of the text, and its actual insight (which should be apparent to believers and non-believers alike, though both for different reason like to miss it) into the human condition. And (and this is why I find this difficult text so interesting), it's complex role as a witness to the origin of ancient near eastern civilisation.

This is why I have to LMAO at those that take the bible literally and only read English...hello, bad translations abound! The ancient languages had many words that had different meanings based on context, or similar but different meaning based on phrasing, they were rich, deep, and complex as hell and frankly modern English...isn't. Its like trying to carve the Venus de Milo by shooting a block of granite with high explosive rounds. Sure you might end up with kinda sorta a similar shape but all the little nuances? Not a chance in hell.

At the end of the day though it truly saddens me that here we are in the 21st century and we still have hatred, bigotry, even murders, based on what some goat herders wrote on a sheep's ass a couple of thousand years ago to explain a world he didn't understand. i mean I can produce works just as old saying the sun is Ra in a chariot but we don't actually believe that, nor do we kill anybody who doesn't believe that, yet there are people getting slaughtered every. single. day. over the stupid shit written hundreds or even thousands of years ago by fricking goat herders. personally I think we'd all be better off if we threw every last book on the fire, just wiped it all from the face of history, because its obvious as long as it exists there are gonna be fruitcakes taking that shit seriously enough to kill.

So does English. "I bear" can mean that I'm a large furry animal with bad grammar, or that I carry something. (And try explaining the Greek aorist tense to someone whose language doesn't even include the concept.):)

The entire thread has been fascinating as a window into how people think, though. I wish life was as cut and dried and black and white as some here seem to think.

Look: people can (and will) believe whatever they want. The best you can hope for is that they TRY to be as objective as possible: to acknowledge the bad AND the good. The only complaint I have about your polemic is that it totally ignores the latter. One example of millions (which I've used here before): the late Danny Thomas' devout Catholic faith created the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

Some people are good. Some are bad. Some commit atrocities, whether in the name of God or secular humanism or atheistic communism. The fact is that Stalin and Pol Pot, both avowed atheists, managed between them to kill more people than Christians have managed to do since a guy named Jesus founded the thing 2,000 years ago. And in far less time.

It amuses me that today's atheists are quick to distance themselves from these two guys, but they won't allow me (a Christian) to put distance between myself and, say, a guy like Fred Phelps with the Westboro Baptist Church. "Ah, you're all just whackjobs, what's the difference?":)

Being an atheist doesn't make you similar to Stalin or Pol Pot at all. In fact, being atheist doesn't make you anything but non-religious. Its more a dissociation with all faithful groups rather than association with a single.

Making atheism into a religion is something I see faithful people do all the time. We're not believing in atheism. Atheism is not a religion. We don't celebrate atheistic holidays. There is no Pope of atheism (although if there was, he'd wear a way cooler hat than the real Pope). There is no literature that defines our values or beliefs. Nobody is getting tax-exempt status by being an atheist organization. There has never been a single war fought under the banner of atheism (because there is no banner!).

Incorrect. Adam and Eve had three sons mentioned by name (Cain, Abel, and Seth), and, additionally, "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters." (Gen 5:4)

I propose that their children were mother fuckers.

Abel is never identified as having a mate before being killed by Cain. Cain expressly has his own wife, though its not entirely clear where she came from, and following the chronology implied by the order of verses in Gen 4, by the time Seth is born, Cain has five generations of descendants. Though, arguably, the similar names in Gen 5 (which only traces Seth's line) suggest a slightly different chronology (or maybe just name-sharing), because some of the descendants of Cain that appear to precede Seth in Gen 4 appear to also be descendants of Seth in Gen 5, which might suggest that the discussion of Seth after the discussion of Cain's line in Gen 4 isn't chronological.

Abel is never identified as having a mate before being killed by Cain. Cain expressly has his own wife, though its not entirely clear where she came from, and following the chronology implied by the order of verses in Gen 4, by the time Seth is born, Cain has five generations of descendants.

The second most likely explanation is that Cain's wife was from the "Other People", the Humans "created" on the 6th day of the Genesis 1 creation myth. This would have been before Yahweh decided to try the Eden experiment and make his own line of pet Humans at the end of the second creation myth.

Of course, the first most likely explanation is that it is all USDA Grade A bullshit that never happened, and was just an attempt by primitive people to explain the world around them.

Longevity prior to the Flood is easy to explain away: there hadn't been much time for imperfections to accumulate in the human genome. About sixteen and a half centuries in, there was a huge population bottleneck, allowing harmful recessive mutations to fix themselves [wikipedia.org] in the genome.

No. In chapter one, male and female are created. It does not specify order, nor the period of time between one or the other, as it is an overview. In chapter two, which goes into detail, you get the specifics.

For reference, Genesis 1:27:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 2:8,18

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

The original language is quite clear that the creation of the two was simultaneous. Indeed the very word for "God" is different in the two chapters because they are drawn from two different oral traditions. They were not originally meant to form a narrative together.

Do you have any reference for that? Which word in the original implies simultaneity?

In regards to your second point - the word for "god" (lowercase g) is the same word in both chapters - . However, Genesis 1 uses the word alone, whereas Genesis 2 uses it in conjunction with the name of the god in question - . A comparison of transliterations might be "In the beginning, the god created the heavens and the earth" (Gen1) "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the god Yahweh made the earth and the heavens." (Gen2). They're both using the same word, just Genesis 2 is a little bit more explicit. The term for "god" in Hebrew was like a title. Referring to someone either by their title ("Yes, Officer, I do know I was speeding") or by their name ("Yes, John, I do know I was speeding"), or by the two in conjunction ("Yes, Officer John, I do know I was speeding") are all equally valid, and all refer to the same person.

Genesis 1 and 2 are obviously different accounts (they're both describing the same event, after all) but that doesn't necessarily mean they're contradictory.

Do you have any reference for that? Which word in the original implies simultaneity?

In regards to your second point - the word for "god" (lowercase g) is the same word in both chapters

You...you can't be that stupid. You're using a computer, so...you're punking us right?

Here's a protip: Genesis was not written in English. Capital letters in the sense that we know them did not exist at the time it was written. You're literally using a translator's errors as your evidence for Biblical "inerrancy" (which I'm pretty sure is a made up word. Infallibility is the word you are looking for).

My post was commenting exactly on the difference between those two words - in fact, if Slashdot wasn't stuck in the pre-unicode past, it would have contained precisely those two words in Hebrew. Elohim transliterates as "god" - the generic term for deity. Yahweh is, for various historical reasons, rendered as LORD in the Biblical text, and is what we refer to when we use "God" as a proper noun in English. The two terms used in those accounts are "Elohim" and "Yahweh Elohim" - they're not two different words

There are people who believe that women have one more rib than men. After all, Eve was created from one of Adam's ribs. The fact that that is not true and easily proven but some fundamentalists absolutely reject simple observation and refuse to believe normal men and women have equal numbers of ribs. Scientific observation - counting the ribs of a man and a woman by touch - is the work of the devil.

Not so fast, smartypants. It's not hard to refute any scientific evidence or argument when you can simply fall back on "nuh uh, because magic".

God is magic. Magic does not falter in the face of reason or evidence. Therefore anything can be refuted with "nuh uh, God." You think just because the Bible contradicts itself (over and over and over) means that the Bible can't be literally true? "Nuh uh, because magic." See how easy that was?

Well, if you forget the pain-in-the-ass literal translationists and get over just-any-ol-thing to piss them off, relax and take a look at what it is.1. First book of the Pentaeuch, the Talmud,the history of the Hebrew peoples. Possibly rewritten from memory by the prophet Ezra and attributed to Moishe (thats Moses before the Greeks misspelled it.)2.These are the stories that were handed down in a verbal tradition from a people lacking written language for the period portrayed. Some embellishment is expected.3. The Adam( Hebrew word for Man as in Mankind) and Eve story is someone remembering the oldest memorable person in the lineage and the story they were told. It amounts to the emergence of Man ( we will define it as the emergence of Man with developed introspection, which places it fairly accurately for a verbal tradition. Why would these people leave lovely lush Bablylonia at the fork of the Tigress and Euphrates? The story seeks to relate that to the listener who would be a Hebrew learning his history.4 The "begets" and the impossible longevity problem. The odd thing is why this is such a mystery. Every one of those names represents a tribe or a place , not necessarily just an individual. So we can say that from Enoch to Methuselah these represent the loosely knit stone age tribes of the Hebrews. The ages give the longevity of the tribe or settlement.5. Noahs Ark; we know there was a great flood in what is now Armenia, in the valley below the Ararat range (it was a range, not an individual mountain) Watermarks show HIGH water. This was their world, therefore the World was flooded. Remember this is how they explained their history to each other, lacking written language.Oddly, there is also another tradition that places Gilgamesh in the boat, rather than Noah, but that is someone else, another time.

This just scratches the surface of Genesis and the details it gives, there is much, much more. I recommend " Azimovs Guide to the Bible" as a good read to find more. Yes, it was written by Issac Azimov, from a Jewish/ secular perspective. He really is a great author and scholar outside of science fiction.

Not being able to believe in any form of super being, I find the Bible and its ilk just best selling novels.
However, if it weren't for computers, we wouldn't be discussing this, so....
In the beginning GOD created the Bit and the Byte.
And from those he created the Word.
And there were two Bytes in the Word; and nothing else existed.
And God separated the One from the Zero; and he saw it was good.
And God said - Let the Data be; And so it happened.
And God said - Let the Data go to their proper places. And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.
And God said - Let the computers be, so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks. Thus God created computers and called them hardware.
And there was no Software yet.
But God created programs; small and big... And told them - Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory.
And God said -I will create the Programmer;
And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.
And God created the Programmer; and put him in Data Center;

If you think those are the same account of events, then you're failing at both reading comprehension and history.

As others have already elaborated, it's well established that the two accounts are from two different traditions. But even your own links describe a clearly different order of events, even ignoring whether Adam and Eve were created at the same time.

Version 1

25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, âoeLet us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.â

Version 2

18 The Lord God said, âoeIt is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.â

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

In the first version it was animals first and then mankind, in the second version it was man first, then animals. (And then woman.)

If you want you can accept them as two stories from two different traditions, one of which is literally true and one of which is metaphor, or you can accept them both as metaphor. But they can't both be literally true.

That only works if you ignore the literary style of the whole rest of the chapter. The past tense isn't specifically used in 2:18, it's used through tout the whole chapter. "Now the lord god had" is used repeatedly, and the two interpretations are "It's a literary way of saying 'now god is doing this'," or "the ordering of this story is a confused mess."

In 2:18 God says he's going to make a helper for man. Then in 2:19 it talks about making the animals. Then in 2:20 it says that no suitable helper was found among the animals.

Is your argument that God was talking about creating woman in 2:18 but got totally sidetracked in 2:19 and decided to try the animals first instead of creating something new like he had _just_ said he was going to do in the previous sentence?

You seem to have a reading comprehension impairment. Chapter 1 is an executive summary showing the general chronological order of creation. Chapter 2 goes into detail about the creation of Adam and Eve.

No, Gen 1:1-2:3 and Gen 2:4 on are different stories as is obvious to any reader who, as I put it above, has not since childhood been exposed to harmonising accounts. The general chronological order in the 2nd account (Gen 2:4...) completely contradicts the order of the 1st. In the first (as it appears in the text, but probably also the more recent) account life is created in this order: plants (Gen 1:11); fish & birds (Gen 1:20); land animals (Gen 1:24); humansboth male and female (Gen 1:26-27). The 2nd account, but contrast, has this order, male human (Gen 2:7); plants (Gen 2:9); land animals & birds (Gen 2:19) and female human (Gen 2:22). Nor does the strict classification of creation by days in the 1st account, and the narrative necessity for the primacy of Adam and the final creation of Eve in the 2nd allow for any honest harmonisation of these two distinct accounts. I'm sorry you have been misled.

Now I could point out the differences style, the designed symmetrical account in the 1st account vs. the rambling folk-talesy tone of the second; or between the nature of God (Elohim), who creates by pure will, "Let there be light" and who dwells on high, with the LORD (YHVH... for the fist few instances the harmonising YHVH-Elohim), a terrestrial being who "fashions" out of clay, who has to call Adam and Eve from their hiding spots and discovers their transgression by their covering (hardly behaviour God on high would engage in). But given the radical disagreement in the "chronological order of creation," all that would be superfluous.

See the heading at verse 4, Chapter 2?

And extremely interesting verse. Though there is room for disagreement here, the best reading IMO is that this verse, though presented as a way to connect both accounts, the first half of the verse "[t]his is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created" ends the first account, and the second "when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens" (a mirror of the beginning of the first, "When God began creating the heavens and earth..." or however you want to translate this difficult piece of Hebrew). Among the facts that recommend this reading is the order heaven-earth vs the earth-heaven which reflect the extra-terrestrial and terrestrial nature of the different numen described above. Also that the highly symmetrical 1st account will end as it began. However, it may simply be that the entire verse is the introduction to the 2nd account.

I have only the slightest hope that this may help rectify your "reading comprehension impairment."

Well, it is generally accepted that we are all matrilinearly decended from the same woman, Mitochondrial Eve [wikipedia.org], I think this pretty much scientifically disproves there being two women at creation, unless one mothered no daughters.

Sigh. Did you even read the article you linked? Because it doesn't mean or say what you think it does.

Well, it is generally accepted that we are all matrilinearly decended from the same woman, Mitochondrial Eve, I think this pretty much scientifically disproves there being two women at creation, unless one mothered no daughters.

No, it doesn't. Per Genesis, we're all matrilineally descended from Noah's wife.

No, it doesn't. Per Genesis, we're all matrilineally descended from Noah's wife.

This is incorrect. According to Genesis, Noah's three sons were married before the flood. Which means that Genesis tells us that none of us are matrilineally descended from Noah's wife. It is only one the father's side that Noah's grandsons were descended from him and his wife. Or to put it another way, per the Genesis account, none of the genetic material today that is transmitted exclusively from the mother comes from Noah's wife.

We are matrilinearly descended from many women, all of whom shared very similar/identical mitochondrial DNA. Their ancestors most likely had distinct mitochondrial DNA from mitochondrial eve as well. It absolutely wasn't one woman. Your mtDNA is not nearly as variable as chromosomal DNA. One reason is because it's smaller (fewer basepairs) than chromosomal DNA, another reason is that it is transmitted without recombination, only from your mother, which means that it doesn't change as quickly as chromosomal DNA. There are many strains of mtDNA, but many people have identical/nearly identical mtDNA.

For someone who's not too familiar with the Bible, what are the claims up for grabs in this challenge, aside from creating the earth in 7 days and 7 nights, Adam & Eve, and the talking serpent?

How can anything be disproved if one must first accept that Genesis is the inspired word of an omnipotent deity? And if that's not an accepted fact, then isn't the "disproof" the fact that it was written by man?

CMB. That's it. I love that three small letters (well, and and enter key I suppose) typed into google can debunk most of this.

But seriously, its actually quite hard to debunk that there were talking snakes/donkeys/gods etc. Its like trying to debunk an invisible pink unicorn is standing behind you.. (But how can it be invisible and pink at the same time?.. ahhh thats beyond scientific understanding!)

I fail to see how that's any kind of proof against an ominipotent deity that can create an entire planet (and even a universe) out of nothing. Surely cooking up some uniform CMB wouldn't be difficult for such a deity.

CMB may be consistent with the Big Bang theory, but it's also consistent with a deity that wants to fill his universe with CMB for whatever reason.

That's the problem with trying to prove anything against an omnipotent deity - omnipotent means he can do *anything* including faking fossil records, making people suffer for no apparent reason (even young children), and filling the universe with CMB.

That's the problem with trying to prove anything against an omnipotent deity - omnipotent means he can do *anything* including faking fossil records, making people suffer for no apparent reason (even young children), and filling the universe with CMB.

Sure, youre right, but do you know what it also tells us?

That this God fellow is one hell of an evil lying monster.

Faking fossil and geological and cosmic records, evolution and tons of independent, consistent physical evidence, all for the purpose of tricking us into not believing in Him, when the punishment for not believing is an infinite number of years of abject torture in some hell that will exist for a literal eternity?

The universe came into being 6 seconds ago, in exactly the state we see now, with all of our memories intact.

Prove me wrong.

Hint - it can't be done. You can always reintroduce the possibility of some omnipotent force. By carefully framing the question, proving it wrong becomes impossible. Instead, you have to unask the question. Western philosophy spent then entire last century trying to unask the premises Descartes set forth for exactly that reason.

This isn't a scientific question, it isn't in a scientific arena, and any scientist thinking they can 'win' the debate/bet is on shaky ground. Not because the science is bad, but because it isn't about science at all...

No one is going to be seeing that money, mark my words. It's a carnival game designed to prevent you from winning. It's not even fundamentally possible for the correct side, the science side, to win because the question is turned upside down. The creationists absolutely know this, which is why it's a very cleverly designed publicity stunt for their cause. No matter the outcome they'll get to trumpet to their followers that they stumped the scientists, while the scientists' explanations will be too subtle and erudite to make sense to the uneducated or those too eager to believe the Bible is literal truth.

This isn't a scientific question, it isn't in a scientific arena, and any scientist thinking they can 'win' the debate/bet is on shaky ground. Not because the science is bad, but because it isn't about science at all...

And that is the trap that many people fall into, particularly the more science inclined, who get sucked into arguments with people whose minds are not open to change. It's like trying to dig a hole in water. Science/religion is a false dichotomy; you don't see mathematicians trying to disprove Shakespeare. Yet somehow it makes intuitive sense to many people that science should have to defend its methodology in the context of the bible, presumably because it was there first. (To be clear, I mean people on both sides of the non-debate--plenty of science-minded people feel a reflexive obligation, that I have never understood, to disprove religious accounts of history.) But we also can't escape the fact that some religious elements view science as an evil (in the biblical sense) force that undermines the word of God.

I look at it like Star Wars. Darth Vader (the church) started out as a good guy, eventually having Luke and Lea (science, which was originally fostered by the church to understand the world God created). But when Vader became evil (pick your religious atrocity) it was up to Luke and Lea to team up and stop him, with Luke eventually killing him... but not before turning him back to the light side (we're still waiting for the rational wing of the Christian faith to marginalize the fundamentalists.) At the end of the day they were both Jedi of sorts, but they were pitted against each other by the Emperor and had no real reason to hate each other. Vader even wanted to rule the galaxy as father and son, which was a nice sentiment, but also highlights how they could have worked well together; it really wasn't in either of their best interests to fight. Look at all the collateral damage: the wage slaves on the Death Star, the poor, uneducated moisture farmers that got sucked into the rebellion, even the Hutts.

I happen to be a scientist and have worked with plenty of rational Christians who still take the old view of science as trying to better understand God through empirical observation of the natural world. So I know they exist. But I'm not holding my breath for the Christian Taliban to realize the futility of arguing with people who aren't arguing back.

A lawyer told me once 'No case is judge proof' - which was very true, as our 'iron clad' case was shot down by the judge because she thought we had been delaying proceedings, whereas it was the other side, and the judge got is mixed up.

Yeah, but they all suffer from a post-Enlightenment bias in favour of science and facts and stuff like that. To get to the real root of the matter, we should ask a 16th century Christian theologian.

For it appears opposed to common sense, and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven. Hence some resort to allegory, and philosophize concerning angels; but quite beside the purpose. For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. Here the Spirit of God would teach all men without exception; and therefore what Gregory declares falsely and in vain respecting statues and pictures is truly applicable to the history of the creation, namely, that it is the book of the unlearned.-- John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis

Hmm. Looks like Calvin was a postmodernist liberal or something. Clearly we need someone with an earlier, more authentically Christian opinion. The 5th century seems early enough; no pesky modern science then.

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are.

With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about [the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation.-- St Augustine of Hippo, The Literal Interpretation of Genesis

Nope, clearly a wishy-washy accommodationist who has been blinded by modernist thinking. Clearly we need to back a couple of hundred more years. Surely third century theologians took Genesis literally.

For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.-- St Origen of Alexandria, quoted in De Principiis IV

It looks like every single major Christian theologian before the 20th century, with the possible exception of Basil the Great (and even then it's only a possible exception), who saw fit to write on the topic, thought that Genesis 1 was at least partly allegorical. In this "trial", pretty much all of Christian history is going to have to file an amicus brief on behalf of science.

10,000$ could be much better off helping the poor. People starve to death with what $0.33 of food would nourish them. So 365days/year *.33food/day so approximately 100$ would keep someone from starving to death for a year. He could have saved 10 kid's lives for 10 years if he spent his money there. When talking of giving, Jesus doesn't want you to grandstand and boast about it though, and maybe that is all this guy wants to do.

The modern Christian's life involves working at a moral job, living frugally and giving one's excess to the poor. Jesus says we'll always have poor, but he didn't say they'll always be starving to death. Outside of horribly corrupt regimes, world hunger could be something that this generation could solve if enough of us helped out some.

There's a church near where I work that has a sign in the window: "Come in and learn the latest scientific evidence for Biblical truth!"

I always smile when I see it, because they don't seem to realize they've already surrendered the epistemological war -- by admitting that weighing scientific evidence is the proper way to ascertain the truth (or falsity) of a claim.

Sure, they can fight a rear-guard action for a while by looking for scraps of evidence that appear to support Scripture (or whatever their take on Scripture is), but unless God starts making public appearances is an independently verifiable, repeatable manner, then the church has already laid the groundwork for their own logical impeachment.

The whole bedrock of religion is faith -- to believe that some things are true regardless of whether there is evidence for them or not. Once you've tacitly admitted that evidence is required, then faith is superfluous, and the church becomes just a group of extremely amateur scientists whose theories can't hold up under examination.

It does no good to debate these people; any evidence against their position is considered inadmissible.

You can point out that chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis tell different and incompatible creation stories: they'll claim that you must read them with the guidance of the holy spirit to truly understand them. Been there, done that.

Genesis says we're all descended from Adam in about 4kBC, and we're also all descended from Noah in about 3kBC (since the rest of mankind was destroyed in the world-wide Genesis flood.) You can bring in the roughly 10k years of Egyptian genealogies which make no mention of Adam, or Noah: they'll claim (without the slightest sense of irony) that the Egyptian genealogies are merely ancient writings of suspect provenance and uncertain accuracy. Been there, done that too.

You can bring in the entire science of geology, which gives zero evidence for and an entire scientific discipline worth of evidence against a world-wide Genesis-type flood: they'll bring in some mouth-breathing "geologist" who got a degree from one of the all-too-numerous fundamentalist "universities" to argue that the question isn't really settled yet, there's still scientific debate. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

You can point out that Genesis 1 is a poem. Instead of rhyme in sound, it rhymes in idea --- just like most other ancient poetry --- with day 1 corresponding to day 4, day 2 corresponding to day 5, 3 to 6, and then day 7 as a finale. You can point out that nobody takes Shakespeare's sonnets literally: "Ah," they say, "But this poem comes from God!" Yes, BTDT too.

Arguments from biology abound, of course: 5k years is insufficient time for one man's genes to diverge into the breadth of human genetic diversity seen today; you can't fit two of every species of insect in an ark, let alone the rest of the fauna; analysis of mitochrondrial DNA puts "Eve" at orders of magnitude before 4kBC; and then there's the whole fossil record of course. All the evidence in the world makes no difference: evidence does not change non-evidential belief.

And you're supposed to convince a JUDGE? That's the trap. Judges are pretty good at determining legal questions; they're about as good as a coin-flip when it comes to scientific questions. We bring in scientific evidence, this nincompoop argues legal blather, which will the judge best understand? If he was serious about the bet being fact-based, he'd offer to have the bet be settled by someone trained in determining the truth or falsity of factual claims. There are such people: they're called "scientists".

When I say "been there, done that", I mean just that. I was raised in a fundamentalist sect, and had most of my education in church schools. I spent 25 years being indoctrinated (it didn't stick, apparently) then 15 years trying to bring the church into the 20th century, and the last 5 years taking what is apparently the only productive approach. Here's the approach, for those who haven't figured it out yet: JUST LEAVE THE POOR IDIOTS ALONE.

Why not $100 billion? After all, this challenge is merely asking a person to prove a negative. Since that is a logically impossibility, the money cannot be won.

An applicant might methodically go through the copious evidence demonstrating the geological age of the earth is billions of years old. Or expound on the multiple plausible ways that abiogenisis (life) may have occured. Or how evolution is both a fact and theory supported by multiple strands of evidence. Or that there is no evidence supporting the biblical creation story. Or that there are many similar creation myths of which the Bible is just one.

And after this exhaustive presentation they still would not have proven biblical creation did not happen. They might have demonstrated beyond all doubt to a reasonable person that it was extremely implausible and unlikely, but they haven't proven it didn't happen. And if this "judge" is biased or following exact letter of the challenge, then the money will not be won.

Carl Sagan's "The Dragon In My Garage [godlessgeeks.com]" essay demonstrates this point with a deliberately absurd example just to hilight the point. And contrast this challenge James Randi's $1 million challenge where applicants are not required to employ tortured logic - they perform a paranormal feat in a self evident way under agreed controlled conditions and they win.

Yea the first day the earth was already there and light was created, of course it was a few days later when the sun was created so where did that light come from?

An omnipotent being created the earth and the rest of the universe, and you're quibbling over how he could create light before the sun? If he can create matter from nothing, surely creating a few photons isn't beyond his powers.

You're the one who could accept that the earth was created by god, except for the inconstancy that light was created before the sun was created.

You can't agree with one miraculous act and then claim that it's inconsistent with a second miraculous act when the first act was already so unbelievable that any being that could accomplish it is truly omnipotent.

The contractors that built my house put up temporary lighting before the wiring and permanent lamps in the house were installed, apparently god did the sa

One of the very first stable particles that would have formed after the big bang would have been a massive wash of photons. All those exotic particles and antiparticles smashing into each other would have created an incandescent soup, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG before stars could even begin to form, so "light" existing before the sun is scientifically predicted.

1.) I've always heard that there are solid grounds for debate. a "Long Day Creationist" (one who believes that the world/universe was created in 6 indeterminate periods of time) and a "Short Day Creationist" (one who believes that the world/universe was created in six periods of twenty four hours) both believe that the earth was created by God. It's not "fudging an interpretation" when there is room for questioning of God's methods, but the duration of tim

Unfortunately he's set the rules so that he can't lose. He's not saying he'll prove Genesis is true. He's saying you have to prove it isn't. It's virtually impossible to disprove things the previously didn't happen. "Prove the sun wasn't originally a giant marshmellow", etc. You can prove it *isn't*, but there's no manner of proving it *wasn't*. He's aware of the fact that science is all about discovering new knowledge, and the language is science is about proving things. Unlike the popular opinion amongst religous folk that "scientists think they know everything", the facts couldn't be further from the truth. It's them who think they know the answers to everything, where science is saying "we don't know, but we'll keep on discovering more."

It's because scientists aren't fraudsters like this guy, that the only response to such a marshmellow statement is "We can't prove the sun wasn't ever a giant marshmellow, but there's no evidence to suggest that is the case." However, to nuts like this guy, to them that's practically an admission that "you can't prove the sun wasn't a giant marshmellow, and this book I've got here says it was.. so it must have been!". Replace "giant marshmellow" with every claim in Genesis. It's exceedingly difficult to prove a prior negative. So difficult in fact, that he's $10k confident that nobody can disprove the non-events.

It'd be nice if someone put up a counter-offer of "$10 million to anyone who can PROVE a deity exists". While equally unprovable, as none exist, the issue we run into is the "judges". See, the people arguing "for" a deity would fall back on exactly the acknowledgement of science that we can't know everything, and don't. They'd say "how did the Universe come into creation?". "We don't know, we have nothing provable, but we have some good theories". "If you by your own admission you don't know, then you can't explain where all the wonder of the universe comes from.. we can.. blah blah blah". Judges: "Those theists make some good points, and the atheists don't have any solid ground to stand on." This is one of the fundamental flaws with the majority of the population - they want to have an answer for everything, to make sense of everything, and can't take "we don't know" as an answer. When presented with "We don't know.. yet" or "An all-loving zombie did it!!!", they'll go with the zombie.

I look at it, and the chances for each event are just too high to say that it's been a run of good luck for life on Earth in my opinion

I created amino acids out of basic molecules in a lab in college by mixing a few gases, water, and some electricity for a week. Extrapolate that over a few billion years over a few billion (or more) planets and the current result is just NOT a very low probability event. It's like saying they chances of winning the lottery are so low that when someone does God must have been behind it.

The traditional trick of these publicity stunts is to post a challenge, and claim there was no response otherwise and therefore it is true. The claim is made while plugging fingers in the ears and pretending there's no contradictions.

Look back to the Kent Hovind [talkorigins.org] challenge, where he posted $250,000 to prove evolution. He gradually shifted the challenge from "provide any evidence of evolution" to "demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that God couldn't cause the big bang" - and each step at asking for clarification was given non-answers (if any).

Even if someone did manage to complete his challenge, Kent Hovind couldn't pay the amount - he's a NINJA - No Income, Job or Asset, by his own bankruptcy claim. Both a scientific and financial fraud.

This challenge is archived [archive.org], with the current page saying you followed an imaginary link. "If you can't win, burn the evidence of losing."

This challenge may be "possible", but don't waste time on it. You have better luck compleing the James Randi challenge instead.